Intraerythrocytic malaria parasites degrade hemoglobin to provide free amino acids for parasite protein synthesis. Hemoglobin degradation appears to be required for normal parasite development. Malarial enzymes that degrade hemoglobin are thus potential targets for chemotherapy. My efforts are directed towards expressing and characterizing falcipain, a malarial hemoglobinase and potential target for antimalarial chemotherapy. Using modeling programs such as MidasPlus in the Computer Graphics Laboratory I am investigating the structures of other cysteine proteases in the same class as falcipain to make models for the structure of falcipain. Homology modeling allows me to begin structure based inhibitor design.